The Anxious Thinkers Club

(TRAILER to full episode)

There's nothing more terrifying than starting a business, or wanting to turn a hobby into a business. Where do you start? This week's episode is about working through the fear of starting as well as the many mistakes that will be made. It's quite literally about being scared, and doing it anyway. Failure and mistakes in business is inevitable, but it's not the end.

There's nothing more terrifying than starting a business, or wanting to turn a hobby into a business. Where do you start? This week's episode is about working through the fear of starting as well as the many mistakes that will be made. It's quite literally about being scared, and doing it anyway. Failure and mistakes in business is inevitable, but it's not the end.

This week we're talking about trauma. How it comes in many forms and from all different directions. It can start in the very beginning and continue throughout your motherhood journey. It's always about everyone and everything else, about baby, family, and everything in between. We have to bring up and talk about the uncomfortable things too. We're so use to covering it up, holding it in, and not bringing it up, that when we even say the word trauma it's awkward and uncomfortable. But we're here to have the uncomfortable conversations. Because what happened to you is real, and it matters and was traumatic. Whether infertility, miscarriage, carrying, delivery, or anything in between. You're allowed to say that it scarred you, you're allowed to still not be ok. You're allowed to talk about it.

How do we filter the good parenting advice from the bad? There's a million different sources from thousands of different people, so how do we filter it? How do we know what to keep and what to toss? In this episode I give my perspective on how we should filter it all....doctors, people, social media, family, etc. My biggest piece of advice, take it all in, but don't take it to heart! Absorb what you need, and leave the rest.

How we speak to ourselves is everything, and sometimes we have to check ourselves on it. Just as fast as we are to accept the negative, intrusive thoughts that have become habit, we have to change the narrative to start accepting the good! Be proud, speak positively, and be mindful of who we let influence us. Nothing is a quick fix, everything is easier said than done; but everything is also doable and possible! Let's talk about it.

Let's start by acknowledging that SAHM's work too! So respect for those that work outside, inside, or both!

Everything has it's ups and downs including deciding to return to work. Here I explain in as much detail as I can what it's like, how it feels, and the pros and cons of going back vs staying home. It's a challenge either way and I think it's so important that we ALL be heard!

Take the poll and answer the question below, what are your thoughts?

If motherhood isn't stressful enough, now we have to find time to focus on ourselves? Finding the motivation to find a hobby or a 'thing' is daunting and stressful in and of itself, but SO necessary. When we don't have anything to escape to or any other distraction or outlet, we lose ourselves, we lose our minds. The important thing is to start, start somewhere, with something. This is part one, let's talk about it!

Panic attacks look different for everyone. There is no 'typical' attack for any two people. The levels of anxiety and attacks and symptoms and degrees of panic vary widely from person to person. So let's talk about what that looks like while taking from personal experience from one that I had just a bit ago. Mental health is hard, we gotta keep talking about it! Because no matter who you are or what you've experienced, I can guarantee you you're not alone, you're not the only one, and you don't have to do it alone either. Listen, subscribe, share!

Understanding that we can be moms and still have identities outside of motherhood. We can still have desires, hobbies, and wants that have nothing to do with our daily responsibilities. Motherhood swallows us whole, and we take it with heart and keep pushing. However it's ok to look up and say I want and need something else to fill my cup. If we can do everything for everyone else without skipping a beat, we can do a hop skip and jump for ourselves too.

There's no way to really stop overthinking, but there are ways to move through it! Everything doesn't work for everyone and nothing is cookie cutter, but this method is something that has worked for me before and still does. It's not the 'perfect' technique, but it's gradual and more realistic for those of us that don't do well with stopping things cold turkey....the more you're told to 'just stop' or 'just do it', you just get more anxious and stressed...right?

This is a method that allows you to do both. We're Going to overthink, we just don't have to let it handicap us and keep us from making decisions and mistakes. Overthinking isn't a 'bad' thing, but it can and will create bad habits if we let it! It's not about taking it away, it's about moving through and not letting it take over. Take a listen and as always, share your thoughts! 

We all feel all the feels when it comes to mommying, and there's nothing more frustrating than feeling all the feels and then feeling dismissed, unheard, and misunderstood. So instead of opening up about our frustrations we end up swallowing it and moving on, while continuing to mom.

 At some point we feel like there's no escape and being a mom starts to feel like a chore on top of everything else. We're then coping with things internally (our own feelings while trying to mother) and externally (society telling us to just smile and keep going).  That my friends, will cause a burning fire of rage in any human. We try to do it all and make it look easy. 

The reality is that it's HARD and it's normal to want to escape from things you get no relief from. Instead of bashing and casting judgment, let's try to understand, empathize, and relate.  We get ragey, and that's ok.

Having the patience to sit while in panic seems impossible. We want the feelings gone, we want it done and over with right now, we don't like suffering and the symptoms and after effects that come with it.

I had two panic attacks last night and only used ONE of my tools ONCE, and it DID help! We go to all the therapy and get all the tools we need, but don't practice them when we're not panicked and don't actively use them when we ARE panicked. We generally believe tools can be cliche, embarrassing to use, useless, take too long, and whatever else.

My thing is, especially when we're actively panicking, what's the worst that can happen if we actually attempt to take a breath, just to humor ourselves to see if it works...we know it won't make it worse, right? We hate it and want it to just go away, but aren't making the conscious decision to do anything helpful to combat it.

If we can challenge, question, fight the other situations and things in life we don't like, why not challenge this (ourselves/panic) too? Why not challenge the false feelings of fear, why not push back, why instead let the beast that is mental health take over without so much as a push back?

We have to give ourselves patience. We have to make a conscious choice of what we're going to allow and not allow. We have to be willing to sit in it in order to fight back. No easy feat right, but what is the alternative? The ultimate goal is to gain back that control little by little, at least when it's needed most. To get there, we have to have the patience to sit with the panic, so that we can do the work. More episodes on this to come. Subscribe, like, share.

This one's just a snippet! Full version available on audio, next episode will also have full video available.

There is no magical formula or secret recipe, no one is going to hand it to you, and it's not going to fall in your lap. The key is to move towards the fear, the uncomfortable, the awkward, the intimidating, the overwhelming. The more you move, the more you DO, the more you GROW.